The Engaging Brand

Are you emotional enough?

Business can tend to make you play safe, play the odds.

However, business and branding is all about emotions. Your product or service is feeding or quenching an emotional need. From the hiring of an accountant to remove the stress from the tax calculation to the purchase of a book to build your confidence, feed your romantic side or give you an escape from the realities of life.

Playing safe can work....but to create a lasting impression, to create that feeling of loyalty, to make people so passionate about your brand that they tell the world...then I believe you have to

• Be emotional....by selling emotion
• Be emotional...by expressing your personality
• Be emotional....by being a person not a company (Social media is a great help here!)
• Be emotional....by understanding that you sell to people through people. Take time to understand the team you work with, fulfill their emotional needs so that they feel ready to concentrate 100% on fulfilling the emotional needs of your consumers
• Be emotional...by standing for something or against something

Being emotional has such a negative connotation yet is the very heartbeat of branding.

Don't fear being emotional in a positive sense....fear more stirring no emotion at all!

Are there 3 in your relationship!

I watched an interview with the fine actress and director Emma Thompson today. She talked about how she wants to make films that are not geared or manufactured for just one generation. She talked about how she wants films to span the generations because of the layers of entertainment contained within them. So that families can go together, enjoy the film together...enjoy their enjoyment together.

Then she remarked that when a film is outstanding there is not just a relationship between the characters and the audience member.....but also a relationship between the audience member and who they are watching it with...

This made me think of business...you know I truly believe that employee engagement is at the heart of any great company. You cannot sell experience, hope, enjoyment etc if the people selling it don't feel for themselves.

When you are a parent it is a 3 way relationship between child and both parents.

When you are a manager it is a relationship between an individual and how the team dynamic works

When you are a business it is the relationship between the leaders, the team and the customers.

Podcast 290 - Why analytics are so important in business

Show 290 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.

Tom Davenport, named in 2003 as one of the Top 25 consultants in the world, joins me to talk about Analytics at Work

We discuss

• Why analytics don't have to be boring!
• Why reporting is not analytics
• How you should not get blinded by past results
• Why it isn't always critical to have all the data
• How do you measure the intangible areas such as customer happiness?
• How to bring data together from across the business
• What skills you need for the new age of analytics
• Does the recent recession put a greater business emphasis on business analytics?

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Are you a tray or a box?

I believe that just like individuals....brands, companies need to work on their personality. They remain too aloof, too flat which leaves me only buying them on price. I remember Dad saying to me

"There are two types of companies in this world. The first kind are like trays, they are functional and deliver a product to you...they can even spend on different colours to make themselves look different...but they are still flat and mainly one dimensional.

Then there are boxes. Boxes come in all shapes and sizes. They come in different colours, different depths....different uses. They create more volume by being 3 dimensional. They have breadth of talent, depth of ideas and 'long' to engage you as a customer.

Companies need to be 3 dimensional to create more 'experience space'....that means being proud to show your personality, being your customer - by living/breathing their world and being fantastic at what you do"

I always smile on those heavy days of work and think are you a tray or are you a box, Anna?

Show 289 Business Etiquette in Modern Business

Show 289 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post.

On today's podcast I talk with Ann Marie Sabath who has trained over 90,000 business professionals in etiquette and who has written a book I have just read called Business Etiquette - 101 Ways to Conduct Business with Charm and Savvy.

We discuss

• What is business etiquette?
• Has the etiquette rules changed over the years?
• Etiquette when using the modern communication tools?
• How do you balance personal and professional style?
• Tips for meetings
• What to do with lateness at meetings
• What to do with a dominant person in a meeting
• Best way to wrap up a conversation
• Managing your boss
• Tips on etiquette differences between in person, in emails, on the phone
• Top 3 tips of business etiquette

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Is the Web Our New Place of Residence?

Driving today I started to wonder whether the internet has changed? Has social media evolved the internet from a form of communication to something bigger, something even more powerful?

When you read statistics of how big Facebook has become or how much time people spend on the internet and how they are using the internet.....for entertainment, for connection etc....well, it makes me think that the internet is becoming more than something you access.

It makes me think that over the next few years it will move from being a social media society to a society. The boundaries between countries or even internal states/counties/regions are coming down at a rapid rate. Is the internet becoming a true place in which we live?

The reason I ask is so that we start thinking of the implications for our brands, for our companies, for our traditional society. Many of my best friends live nowhere near me nowadays and yet I hang out with them most days...my society is internet based.

When I first logged onto the internet I saw it as a communication channel of some kind, I am now seeing that it is building connections and community....but will we see our wed address as tangible as our home address in the future? Will we see government of people across state boundaries? This internet thing is more than a product it is a way of life for many and growing....is the new society, the new town..the web?

Are we evolving from social media to social networking to a new society?

Show 288 - Reinventing Business

Show 288 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post and brought by our sponsor: GotoMeeting  Hold your meetings online for just $49/mo. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days.

On today's podcast I talk with Nilofer Merchant who is a " leading authority on creating business strategy to win markets. Having worked inside and outside major corporate brands like Adobe, Apple, Nokia and others..." Nilofer's latest book is called The New How and looks at how to reinvent business through collaborative strategies. We talk about

• How strategy is as much about what not to do as great ideas
• Are ideas easier to create than put into action
• Does childhood prepare you for business?
• The notion of followership
• The concept of an 'air sandwich'
• How can you encourage a collaborative culture?
• The importance of people improvement versus process improvement
• How to recognize what you need to know
• How to create the right strategic options
• Is it about what we are good at now or what we want to be good at in the future?
• How to make tough choices on strategy
• How hard is it to create accountability.

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

My Number 1 Pet Hate in Business

I have always hated organisation charts...can you have a orgchartphobia! If so I have it...:)

I was reminded today of my dislike when a group of managers in a coffee shop were having a "strategy discussion" about how get people more motivated and working closely together and in the middle of their table...their only reference guide were organisation charts!!

Couple of points I have always felt would make the standard chart more honest

• Have the top names squat at the top of the paper surpressing any creativity
• Have barbed wire instead of straight lines for the boxes
• Have the word 'problem' placed between boxes which don't connect
• Have as a title...Look mum and dad how important I am!

If you need to put down on paper your structure...problem in itself to me!....then why not be creative? Why not have a interconnected map? Why not have a linked in approach? Why not have photos of people rather than job titles? Why not have the leaders at the bottom? Why not have a sphere connecting everyone in a circle?

I feel passionately that you should earn respect as a leader rather than demand it because of a chart?

Show 287 - The Riddle of Human Existence

Show 287 of The Engaging Brand leadership and marketing podcast is ready just for you. To subscribe or listen on your PC now - both for free, you don't need to download anything - all explained at the end of the post and brought by our sponsor: GotoMeeting  Hold your meetings online for just $49/mo. Try GoToMeeting FREE for 30 days.

On today's podcast I talk with MIchael Meacher who has been a Member of Parliament for 40 years in the UK and has just written a book called Destination of the Species - The Riddle of Human Existence.  We talk about

• The riddle of human existence
• How to create an objective argument of a subjective topic and how to recognise your own prejudices
• Do human beings need meaning in their lives?
• The evolution of thinking on human beings and their existence
• Is human evolution cyclical?
• Is interconnectedness a basic need of survival for human beings?
• Our adaptability as human species and how we need to transform in the future
• How we need to balance risk with boundaries to survive in the world

Don't forget to subscribe to the show in iTunes or on the Blubrry site.

If you have feedback for me on the show or topics that you would like me to cover then e-mail me at anna@theengagingbrand.com or join me on twitter.

How you can listen to the Engaging Brand

1) You can listen on your PC now without downloading any software just click hear to listen to the latest marketing podcast

2) You can subscribe to the show via iTunes or

3) If you use a different podcatcher then you can subscribe using the following  http://www.podcasternews.com/feeds/enbr.xml

Why I love uncertainty

Business is uncertain, we live in uncertain economic times, our lives are uncertain. The paradox it seems to me is that as human beings we seem to dislike uncertainty to a certain extent and without that uncertainty we probably wouldn't have our work.

Business thrives on helping or supporting customers with uncertainty, business makes profits from uncertainty. Grabbing a drink on the go at a premium because we don't know when we will get the chance of another drink, insurance for future risks, ipods so that we can be more certain of having our music when we want it etc etc

When we start to embrace uncertainty as an opportunity as well as a risk, when as individuals we can embrace it rather than defend against it....profitability can become a realistic goal. We just need to understand

• What uncertainties our customers face
• How we can provide support for those uncertainties
• Provide it better than anyone else
• Keep thinking about new uncertainties because as we help solve them ,then we need to create new opportunities to help create the brand premium of the future